‘This is beneath a member of Congress’: Representative Mike Collins makes light of JFK assassination on X

Congressman Mike Collins (R-Georgia) tweeted a dark joke about the Kennedy family after the New York Times reported Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed a worm entered his brain and ate part of it. Collins’ tweet was received as disrespectful by many.

“You either die a Kennedy with a hole in the brain,” Collins tweeted, “or live long enough to become a Kennedy with a hole in the brain.”

Both Kennedy’s father, Robert F. Kennedy, and his uncle, former President John F. Kennedy, were assassinated by being shot in the head. Kennedy’s other uncle, former Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) died from a brain tumor.

Many who responded to Collins’ tweet on X expressed disdain and disapproval for his comment, and some suggested he delete the post.

“This is beneath a member of Congress,” an X user wrote.

“This is beyond the pale and I am a conservative telling you this,” another person said. “Some level of human decency should transcend politics. Do better.”

“Just when you think politicians can’t lower themselves any further, one comes along and surprises you,” an X user tweeted.

Collins is known for his rather unfiltered social media presence—his X bio says, “come for the memes, stay for the policy”—but it’s gotten him in trouble before.

Just last week, he posted a video of a white Ole Miss student taunting a Black woman by acting like a monkey with the caption “Ole Miss taking care of business.” The woman was a pro-Palestinian protestor.

“Lock her up! Lock her up!” the students are heard yelling in the video.

On Monday, Collins released a statement on X, saying that he doesn’t “tolerate any form of discrimination.”

“Frankly, I did not believe [the monkey sounds] to be the focal point of the video,” Collins said in his statement. “But I recognize that there certainly seems to be some potentially inappropriate behavior that none of us should seek to glorify.”

The internet is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here to get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.